Post Crop Surgery Questions

[Kiki]

Quick update, my friend texted me saying she had some dog antibiotics (Clavamox). Can I give this to my chicken?

Yes.

 

[CPBlaire]

Yes.

Wonderful! Do you know how I should dose it? the pills she gave me are 250mg.

 

[staceyj]

Wonderful! Do you know how I should dose it? the pills she gave me are 250mg.

Honestly I’ve saved myself the trouble of stitches on myself numerous times with crazy glue. Did you read @rebrascora ’s testimonial/instructions?

If I was dealing with my own chicken I’d go for it rather than wait. As she said the crop is white. Easy to see what you’re doing.
Go over her posts again and
take your time absorbing what she says about it.

I’m afraid if you wait three days or more since tonight starts all the Black Friday deals, for shipping you’ll be dealing with a cesspool in there.

 

[staceyj]

Clavamox is great!
It’s equivalent to human augmentin.

How many can you get?

 

[casportpony]

Quick update, my friend texted me saying she had some dog antibiotics (Clavamox). Can I give this to my chicken?

Yes, you can give that to her, but the chicken dose is massive compared to a dog. What exactly does your friend have?

Wonderful! Do you know how I should dose it? the pills she gave me are 250mg.

How much does she weigh?

 

[CPBlaire]

Clavamox is great!
It’s equivalent to human augmentin.

How many can you get?

She gave me what she had left, which was 5 pills @ 250mg.

 

[CPBlaire]

Yes, you can give that to her, but the chicken dose is massive compared to a dog. What exactly does your friend have?


How much does she weigh?

Hmm, I haven't weighed my girl but I would say she can't be more than 10lbs. She is a cream legbar. I did not realize chickens require more than a dog! I only have 5 pills @ 250 mg. How much would you recommend I give her? While my mom was here, I had her help me inspect my hen. Maybe I was overly paranoid about my hens subcutaneous fluid condition earlier, but when my mom was here, everything seemed fine. It seemed as if the fluid was no longer there. If everything seems fine tomorrow, should I still proceed with re-suturing?

 

[CPBlaire]

You have received some excellent advice.
I can only advise you from my own experience which was surprisingly successful.
I was very sceptical about using super glue but I would strongly recommend it to close the crop. The crop lining tissue is quite white which helps to locate the lips of the crop incision, blot them dry and stick them together. I was so sceptical about how effective the glue would be at keeping the contents in that I did not close the outer incision in the skin because I was pretty certain that there would be some leakage. I just packed the wound with antiseptic cream and kept her caged in clean conditions for a couple of weeks. The important thing for the super glue to be effective might be the size and location of the incision. I kept my incision small (about half an inch) and high up in the crop.....above the water line so to speak. That made it more fiddly to extract the impacted material but much less likely to leak. If your incision is towards the bottom of the crop then the superglue may not be so successful but I would probably still give it a try. You will know if it is not holding because there will be drainage out of the outer incision.
I made the mistake of doing the surgery with the pullet on her side and she refluxed and aspirated during surgery, so I would strongly recommend keeping her upright to prevent this. I was sure my girl would die from pneumonia and I didn't have access to antibiotics either so I just left her to it and didn't even dress her wound over the next 3 days because her breathing was so bad I didn't want to stress her. She recovered miraculously on the 3rd day but she was running around within 2 minutes of me finishing th3 surgery and eating scrambled egg within 20 mins. Personally I would give her mushy food like scrambled egg rather than direct fluids as they are less likely to leak out of the incision and will still provide her with some water that her body needs.
My girl Vippy had been impacted for 10 days (that I knew about) before I resorted to surgery and she had lost an awful lot of weight, but despite her surgery and aspirating crop contents she was back up to weight and laid me an egg exactly 2 weeks later (on my birthday as it happened..... best birthday present I ever got!)

So in your position I would remove the sutures, flush the subcutaneous fluid out thoroughly with warm sterile saline and also flush the crop with warm water. If you are holding her upright to do this hopefully some of the water will find it's way down into her dighestive tract which will help with her dehydration. Then find the lips of the crop incision.... as I said they should be white although after 2 days it may not be so obvious. Blot them with gauze and apply a little glue and nip together..... it is fiddly I know but if I can do it, so can you!..... just be persistent and you will get there. Then leave the outer incision fully open, would be my advice and pack with triple antibiotic ointment. Chickens heal from some really incredible wounds so, don't be too worried about it. If it is huge then maybe just stitch or glue the top half of the outer incision.

I will try and find photos of Vippy with her surgical wound.

I would like to congratulate you on doing the surgery. I know how scary it is when you have scalpel in hand (I didn't even have one of those and used a craft knife!). Chickens are incredibly resilient and in lots of respects doing this surgery at home may be less risky than having a vet do it because they have to use anaesthetic and that can be more dangerous than the surgery itself. Hopefully you will be able to rectify the problem and she will come through it with flying colours like my Vippy did.... and she didn't hold it against me that I put her through that.

Out of curiosity, what did you get out of her? Was it the usually soggy mass of tangled vegetation?

Happy Thanksgiving @rebascora! Thank you for sharing your experience and advice. I hope my Bonnie can pull through this ordeal just like your Vippy. When I performed the surgery, I was mindful to stay towards the top as I had read another account where someone made their incision towards the middle, but it ended up being lower after the surgery. During the surgery, I pulled out a foul smelling mush ball with bits of grass and even the bedding material I use in their coop (wood shavings from the local feed store). I'm fairly confident she also had sour crop as there was a foul odor that eminated from her when I tried to massage the crop.

She has a water bowl with her in the cage to drink at will and I have seen her drink from it several times. I've also been giving her tiny servings of plain yogurt or unsweetened apple sauce with a tiny bit of watered down crumbles. She hasn't been a fan of that, but if I put some watered down scrambled eggs she goes right for it. And surprisingly, as of this evening, the subcutaneous fluids seem to have mostly gone away. The sutured area also doesn't seem to be hot to the touch. If things don't seem out of place tomorrow, should I still re-open the wound back up?

 

[rebrascora]

My concern would be that, if her crop was sour and it was leaking into the tissue under the skin, the infection, be it yeast or bacterial, is no longer contained, but you are the person who is able to see and feel and smell the bird and her wound so I would go with your gut feeling as regards whether to reopen her or not.
You do need a definitive weight on your hen. Almost every hen I have ever seen is under 10lbs. As a legbar, I would be surprised if she is more than 5lbs, especially if she has been impacted for a while as she will have lost weight. Get some scales and get an accurate weight because that is important for medication. If necessary, put her in a paper feed bag to contain her whilst you get her weight.
I did not buy saline, I just boiled water with sea salt and let it cool, so don't worry about not having clinical stuff if you do decide to open her up.
As regards food, I would get some unmedicated chick crumbs and make a warm mash by soaking that in water until it is completely broken down and sloppy and mix the scrambled egg into it.
You might also want to get some medication to treat a yeast infection if you believe she did have sour crop. The antibiotics will probably encourage a yeast infection rather than deal with it but if she is keen to eat now that suggests to me that she no longer has a sour crop problem.
Good luck whatever you decide and please keep us updated. We are all rooting for you and her.
Happy Thanksgiving to you!

 

[rebrascora]

I appreciate it must be a busy time for you over the pond with your holiday celebrations but just wondering how she is doing and keeping my fingers crossed for her.